Dishwashing is generally considered to be an onerous task. It can be especially difficult and tedious to clean dishes and related utensils thoroughly and completely, especially when burned, dried or other hardened residue has become stuck to the utensils. As a result, numerous devices have been developed to assist in the cleaning of dishes, silverware and related cooking utensils and articles, such as automatic dishwashers.
However, for various reasons (e.g., lack of space) many persons have installed a spray nozzle or spray head connected by means of a hose to an existing water supply at a kitchen sink, in order to ease the burden of dishwashing. While these devices provide some advantage over other manual dishwashing systems, they are still limited by the water system pressure and the maximum water temperature which can be withstood by the user of the device. As a result, it can be difficult to remove residue which is stuck to eating or cooking utensils when cleaning such utensils with such a sprayer.
Due to the above limitations, it has been found that a fair amount of additional mechanical scrubbing must often be used to remove hardened deposits which have stuck to the various utensils. Accordingly, many devices have been developed to provide this function in combination with a spray nozzle. However, most of these devices include a brush or scrubbing device as an inseparable part of the spray nozzle. Of those few scrubbing or brushing devices which are removable from the nozzle, all impede at least some of the water flowing from the nozzle and thus require a fair amount of porosity in order to allow for the flow of water therethrough. Accordingly, they must be relatively soft and pliable and are thus limited in their ability to remove hardened materials mechanically from utensils.
The need arises for a scrubbing device which is attachable to an existing spray nozzle or spray head, which provides sufficient mechanical strength to remove stuck deposits readily from cooking and eating utensils. The device must be attached in a manner which does not appreciably block any of the outflow from the nozzle in order to provide adequate flow during the washing operation.